Free
by Anifan1
Summary: I edited this a little. MAJOR spoilers for #52. What I hope happened at the end of #52 to Tom and his family.


** Free**  
  
**Disclaimer**:  
I do NOT own Animorphs. Please don't sue me.  
  
Thanks, Arin, for reading the story and giving me feedback! :)  
  
Also thanks to EVERYONE who reviewed. I really appreciate it!  
  
Also, I _might_ make a sequel to this. Maybe. Depending on how many people want one and if I can think of some good ideas.   
  
*********  
The first time I had ever felt hope after the sickening Yeerk had entered my mind and took over my life was when the strange, mangled sound on the phone had told me never to give up. When the Yeerk had tried to retrace the number, it had been unsuccessful. And I had started fighting the slug again.  
  
The Yeerk was quick to kill that one, solitary hope. It reminded me over and over that I was a slave, a helpless slave in my mind, and could do nothing unless he wanted me to. And at times I nearly lost hope of ever being free.  
  
Often I wondered if the call had been a wrong number.  
  
Or a prank call. . .  
  
But the worst time had been when my parents were taken. The Yeerk, using my body, had taken them to the visser and had made me listen while they screamed in agony and terror. Then their faces went blank as two other slugs had taken over my parents' bodies. I -meaning me, not meaning the slimy Yeerk- never saw them again. It was too much to hope that the alien parasites would be kind enough to put us in the same cage even once during the few hours of "freedom" we had. All of us were seperated, and were given different schedules that didn't even overlap for a minute. The Yeerk saw to it that even my encounters with my parents as Controllers were sharply limited.  
  
That's right, slave, the Yeerk had sneered at me. I won yet again. Now I have you, your family, and the identity of the Animorphs. And I'm alive, despite the visser's attempts to starve me.   
  
Leave them alone. They didn't do anything, I replied half heartedly.  
  
I no longer replied to the Yeerk's comments with equally sharp ones. It had done nothing before anyway. There was truly no hope.  
  
I had lost.  
  
And then, when the Yeerk had gotten the escafil device from Jake's girlfriend. . . I thought I was going to be physically sick. Now the Yeerks had won. There would be hundreds of morph capable Yeerks by the next feeding. Even if Jake and the others fought, they had lost their only weapon. They would lose within days.  
  
I'm glad you think so. As a matter of fact, I agree, laughed the Yeerk as it heard these thoughts.  
  
Leave me alone, I begged.  
  
Now why would I want to do that, human? The Yeerk acted as though I was five years old. Your brother and his friends have been a thorn in our sides for months. Do you really believe that I am going to be kind to you because of it?   
  
Whatever. Inwardly, against my will, the thought formed, And quit calling me "human." I have a name.   
  
Of course the Yeerk heard this.   
  
So do I, he retorted, though he really couldn't have cared less whether I called him anything from Garnas Four-Seven-Five to Yeerk curses that would be the equivilant of the four letter word.  
  
Fine, _Garn-ASS_, I snapped.   
  
Apparently this time I had bothered him. Quiet, fool! he snapped, and then replayed the memory of taking my parents to the visser, followed by the memory of giving the visser the escafil device. He would have continued, I bet, but then he noticed the time.  
  
Damnit, he swore, the train is almost here!   
  
That's not even a word, I countered wearily.  
  
We of the Yeerk Empire will use whatever words we want, whether or not they're in your primitive language, he replied snottily.  
  
Oh great. He was now going to go on and on about how the "mighty Yeerk Empire" had killed all of these races and enslaved even more. I've heard the rank so many times I have it memorized, all the way from, We, the mighty Yeerks who are born to conquer all. . . to And that is why we will from sheer brillance not only conquer humans and Andalites but be able to enslave the universe.   
  
Isn't that right, human? Are we not the greatest empire of all? he snapped.  
  
Had the situation not been so hopeless I probably would have started laughing. He reminded me then of some disney character, probably Captain Hook from Peter Pan. I _could_ see the resemblance. . .  
  
Answer me, slave, or you will regret ever being born.   
  
The Yeerk was not amused that I was comparing him to a cartoon.  
  
_Nothing_. _Think nothing_, I commanded myself.  
  
For a minute it let me see some of the tortures it had in mind due to my failure to comply with his command. Then it glanced at my watch again, realized that we had been standing there for five minutes, cursed, and walked to my car.  
  
He realized that I hadn't been saying anything and probably found this preferable to torturing me.  
  
Fine, he said at last, through clenched teeth, so to speak. You're easier to control that way, fool. He smirked at me as we headed on the train along with all of the other hosts.  
  
Soon he grew bored of my silence, though. As we/he drove the car to the train station, he made a lot of stabbing remarks on the ride, replaying some terrible memories that I wanted nothing more than to forget.  
  
Forget? Where's the fun in that? Then how can I torture you? He mocked, laughing.  
  
That's the point, daspen.   
  
Daspen was a Yeerk curse, I knew this. While no one knew the exact translation -or to be more accurate, no Yeerk told their host the translation- I had a feeling it was probably worse than the four letter word.  
  
He hardly minded being called this. It might have actually been a compliment to his sick mind.  
  
Unlike humans, fool, I am not dumb, was all he would say.  
  
_I wouldn't be too sure about that_, I thought to myself.  
  
We have conquered more races than you can begin to imagine.   
  
The speech was coming.  
  
It was a little different this time, though. He then began to run off a long list of every race and millitary strategy that the Yeerks had used (making most of them up, I'd bet), until we arrived at the pool.  
  
Not that the idea of spending a few hours in a cage listening to howls of people who hadn't (or worse, had) given up seemed fun either. I sighed inwardly.  
  
Deal with it, you insolent fool, he snapped. You've been a Controller for over a year and will continue to be one until we eliminate you.   
  
Can't you just "eliminate me" now and get it over with? I muttered.  
  
He put my head over the pool.  
  
Even if you get rid of me because of my undeniable rise in our hierarchy, it will just be reinfestation with another Yeerk.   
  
And with that he fell out of my head. Before I could squash him, I was jerked up by some Hork-Bajir and dragged to the cages. I looked around in vain for my parents. Of course they weren't there.  
  
Suddenly the Animorphs came in. They said something to the visser about a bomb. My heart started beating excitedly. I would die! No more pain! No more vile slugs! And if there was an afterlife. . .I suddenly felt hope, but even more than that. . .joy.  
  
The visser screamed in fury at the Animorphs and began to morph. The next thing I remembered, some human Controllers were unlocking the cages. The bombs started going off, destroying tons of Yeerks in the pool. The chance of surviving was getting smaller and smaller. But the human Controllers, completely risking their lives, stayed behind to help us.  
  
"Over here!" I screamed giddily. "Please! Over here!"  
  
After all, I didn't want to be killed from the explosion.  
  
There were ten others in my cage who were all screaming the same thing. Most were more or less my age. They were all pounding on the walls of the cage, yelling even louder than they had been beforehand, which I had thought was impossible.  
  
Still, I didn't mind.  
  
Controllers were running all over the place, unlocking the cages and freeing humans. Had the situation not been so desperate, I would have been shocked. Yeerks were risking their lives for humans? I would never have believed that.  
  
A Controller run over to us and took out a key. I had never seen her host's body before in my life, yet somehow she seemed familiar. Her host had dark brown hair with golden highlights. Her eyes were even darker and her face was very pretty. . .well, with the exception of a few zits on her forehead. She was pretty small, maybe five inches smaller than me. She was wearing a blue shirt with stripes on it and a long grey skirt with pockets. I could faintly hear a jingling sound as she came over.  
  
"Freeze." Her voice, soft but clear with purpose, rang with authority. Though she was probably younger than me I didn't doubt that she had the skill needed to be a teacher, or a commander, one day. "I won't let any of you out until you hear what I have to say."  
  
She shined a flashlight that I just saw in our faces. I then saw that she carried a dracon beam. I swallowed any shouts that were about to come from my throat.  
  
The cage suddenly grew silent.  
  
"I won't force any of you to come with me to the hideout, but if you don't the Yeerks will probably get- and kill- you," she told us, looking around as she spoke. "Follow me if you desire to do so- it will mean that the chances of you living more than a few minutes will increase."  
  
She then took the key and unlocked the door, stepping aside as we all burst out. For the few minutes it took for us to get out of the pool area, we ran.  
  
Bodies were all over the place, dead from the flames. Yeerks frantically tried to crawl out. Some of us squashed them, but most left them alone. They would die soon anyway.  
  
Most of us ended up reluctantly following the girl, some of us raising our eyebrows. She _had_ freed us after all, but she was a Yeerk. But if we didn't follow her, it was very likely that the visser would kill us. He doesn't give up _that_ easily.   
  
The Yeerk nodded to us, surprised at how many of us had trusted our lives in her hands. "Just follow my instructions. I'm not making promises but I think that I can get you to the hideout."  
  
She continued. "If anyone comes, be sure that you identify yourself as your Yeerk's name and rank. Attract no unwanted attention."  
  
"How the heck do we do that?" interrupted a girl who looked like she was in her twenties. She had long red hair and grey eyes. She was wearing a red T-Shirt with yellow stripes and a pair of jeans. She had some freckles and was medium height. Her voice was harsh and untrusting from all of the time she had spent under Yeerk control.   
  
"You're Claire, aren't you?" The Yeerk asked.  
  
The girl nodded.  
  
"It so happens, and I thank the Kandrona for this, that I'm a visser. They won't be able to kill you- if you obey my instructions that is- without getting into massive trouble with the Council of Thirteen."  
  
The Yeerk was a visser? I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. . .   
  
"You will be pleasently surprised with what you find at the hideout, Claire," the Yeerk added.  
  
We ran for ten minutes staight.  
  
"Run to the right! It's quicker. Just follow me!"  
  
"What's your name?" panted one person, probably a girl my age, but I naturally wasn't about to turn around to look. I had only seen Claire because she had been running next to me. And she was the girl who I had joined the Sharing for. Irony of irony.  
  
"Which?" the Controller panted.   
  
"Heck!" she yelled. "Like it _matters_!"  
  
"I'm Tarash Five-One-Four," panted the Yeerk. "My rank's Visser Three, formally Visser Five. And my host's name. . . is Rose."  
  
We were all out of the Yeerk Pool by now and running over some old houses.  
  
We stopped for a minute to catch our breathes. We hid underneath some trees for a little, and waited until it seemed safe. Then we took off again.  
  
"Man, it's times like this that I wish that slug had been higher ranking. What I wouldn't give to be able to morph," complained someone.   
  
"We were able to make a replica of the escafil device," Tarash told us. "Anyone who desires to have the morphing capability will be given it."   
  
"Cool. But do the others know?" the same person asked.  
  
"We were careful when we experimented," was all Tarash would say.  
  
Then, a minute later. . .  
  
"This way!" Tarash yelled back at us, as we went to cross the street. "And be careful about the light! Like it or not, the human invention still _does_ turn green during life and death situations!"  
  
About five minutes later, Tarash stopped us in front of an old warehouse.  
  
"Come on inside," she said as she unlocked the door and turned off the alarm code.  
  
"_Here?!_" I exclaimed. Looking around, completely out of breath, I saw that I wasn't the only skeptical one.  
  
"Well, the nearest hotel said it wasn't really worth the risk," Tarah replied, somewhat sarcastically. "You know, with all of the escaping humans and us freeing hosts and all."  
  
This was new to my ears. The Yeerks of the peace movement tried to free humans? Had I known that awhile ago. . . I was beginning to feel that nothing was going to surprise me. After all, I had just learned that Jake was an Animorph.  
  
And it appeared that yes, Yeerks have a sense of humor after all. Well, at least this particular Yeerk had picked it up from her host.  
  
"Get in!" she warned us, looking around nervously. "Now. Hurry! The visser and his men are going to try to kill every host that gets in the way."  
  
"Where are we going?" I asked as we (the two of us and about seven others who had decided to place their bets on trusting her) followed her inside.  
  
I could hear some voices upstairs. The house looked dangerous from the outside, spray painting and all, but was really pretty normal looking on the inside.  
  
"Upstairs. Where everyone else is."   
  
So informative. I also realized then that she wasn't looking directly at us.   
  
"Everyone else?" someone gulped.  
  
Tarash turned to us, somewhat exasperated. "No, you will not be reinfested unless you wish to be a member of our movement. It's something else. This way."  
  
She had probably rehearsed these words before. It was possible, after all, that the Yeerks of the peace movement had known about the bomb.  
  
She pointed to the stairs. Seeing as I didn't have too much to lose, I followed her. Looking back on it later, I would see that this was definitely one of the best decisions I had made in life.  
  
"I'm going to need to ask who you all are. Including the previous Yeerk- name and number- that was assigned to you," she added, stopping us once we were up the stairs. We were outside of a room and her back was turned towards it, preventing us from entering.  
  
When it was my turn, I told her, "Tom . And the Yeerk's name is - well, was- was Garnas Four-Seven-Five."  
  
The Controller wrinkled her nose in digust. "You have my sympathy. He infested my host before I came along. . .you can imagine the damage that was done. At any rate," she added brightly, "he's most certainly dead now." She turned to the others. "And more will definitely follow."  
  
She finished with the names and comments and led us inside a huge room. There were about five hundred humans, ninety Hork- Bajir, and a pool in the middle with Yeerks. I stared at her nervously.  
  
She cleared her throat. Everyone- well, every Yeerk- became silent.  
  
"May I have your attention, please? You must understand what is going on here. This was a great victory for us, one that our Animorph friends certainly did not plan on but can only work to their advantage.  
  
"You all followed us because you thought you had nothing else to lose. Obviously you know that we're Yeerks. Right now I will explain to you the agenda and exactly who we are.  
  
"You see, some of the newly freed hosts- especially humans- have family who have been in the movement for some time. These hosts might not know about this, and were we to let everyone roam loose, we would lose the entire day and most likely half of the people here.  
  
"We are the Yeerk Peace Movement. We realized it was too risky before and began to actively increase our numbers. That's the long story in a nutshell. I'm Visser Three, formally Five, and my Yeerk name is Tarash Five-One-Four.   
  
"I have a list of names down of everyone who's here of each family. While our movement is a democracy, I am -as humans say- the mediator.   
  
"When I call your name, I'll show you where your family is. As you can tell, it might be nearly impossible to find them. And not everyone's family is here. No, not because they're dead, but because some are. . . missing. However, at least sixty percent of you have at least one family member here- Yeerk or human."  
  
My heart began to beat faster and faster. It couldn't be possible. . .  
  
When Tarash called my name, I thought I was hallucinating. As it was she practically had to walk me over to my parents. I could barely see them; tears were starting to well up in my eyes. I couldn't believe what had happened.  
  
"Where are they?" I managed to ask Tarash.  
  
Tarash, smiling at me, had someone lead me to them. I couldn't believe it. All of this time. . .  
  
"Are they free or members of the movement?" I asked.  
  
"Members of our movement, of course with their permission," the person replied.  
  
My parents were alive. My parents were _alive_. And they were free. _Free_. I couldn't believe it.  
  
The person led me past all of the people to my parents. They were standing there, and I could see tears streaming down their faces. They ran up to me and hugged me.  
  
"Thank God you're ok," whispered my dad, still holding onto me.  
  
"We- we thought we'd never see you again," hiccuped my mom.  
  
"I love you," was all I was able to say.  
  
"We love you too, Tom. I'm just so glad you're all right," my mom told me.  
  
"I-is Jake here?" I asked. I didn't see him.  
  
My parents shook their heads. My dad held my hand. "He's still fighting the Yeerks, Tom. We know for a fact that they're all right. They weren't killed by the explosion, at any rate. It's against the rules for us to join them, because if the visser finds one of the humans who has a Yeerk of the movement, he'll be able to kill us all. It's a rule of the movement. We all agreed on it."  
  
I nodded and swallowed.  
  
"Soon, though," Mom promised. "Soon it will be over."  
  
**The End**- or is it? ;-)


End file.
